Building Extensions #15: Creating widgets with the JS SDK bundle in Zoho Desk—Inter-widget communication

Building Extensions #15: Creating widgets with the JS SDK bundle in Zoho Desk—Inter-widget communication

This series aims to equip developers with all they need to build extensions for Zoho Desk in Zoho Sigma and publish them in Zoho Marketplace.

Hello Developers!

In our previous post, we briefed the use of Hooks API and explained it with an example on how to use them in a Desk extension. In this post, we'll learn about the inter-widget communication feature and how it can be used in your extensions with an example.

Inter-widget communication

There are scenarios where an extension could have multiple widgets. In such cases, it is important to have communication between these widgets for the extension to be more user-friendly. The inter-widget communication feature of Zoho Desk helps you create a connection between widgets and facilitate communication between them. When two widgets are communicating, there are a few points to remember during implementation. Let’s consider one widget as the sender and the other as the receiver.

Sender widget
  1. This widget should know the receiving widget's identity.
  2. When it knows that identity, it can send the desired data to the receiving widget.
Receiving widget
  1. This widget needs to be active to receive data from any sender.
  2. It can then process the received data.
You can achieve this with the help of a couple of SDK methods provided by the Zoho developer platform.
  1. App.instance.getWidgets(): The getWidgets() method will return an array of all the widgets available in the extension, including the one from where this call is made.
  2. siblingwidgetId: Every widget associated to the extension will have a unique ID. You can use the code widgets[0].widgetID to get the widget ID of the desired widget from the array of widgets available. The array index for the widget is defined based on the order in which the widgets are listed in the plugin-manifest file of the extension.
  3. var siblingWidget = App.instance.getWidgetInstance(siblingwidgetId): This returns the whole instance of the selected widget.
  4. siblingWidget.emit('event', data): This sends the data from the selected widget on the event occurrence.
Once we pass the data from the first widget (sender), we need to enable the other widget (receiver) to receive the event sent from the first widget. The following code snippet needs to listen to an event emitted by the sibling widget.

App.instance.on('event', function(data){});

Sender Widget
Receiving Widget
Need to know the receiving widget's IdentityNeed to be active to receive the data
Get the instance of the desired widgetReceive data and process it as required
Send the data

Let’s learn about inter-widget communication with an example.

Scenario

Consider a scenario where an agent is provided with detailed information about a particular customer within Zoho Desk itself that is easily accessible. Wouldn’t it be useful for the agents to understand the value of their customer easily? Yes, this can be done using an extension.
  1. Fetch the details of the customer from Zoho CRM.
  2. Showcase the required customer’s information in Zoho Desk.

Platform features

To implement the above scenario, the following Desk platform features are used.
  1. Background widget: This widget runs on its own in the background by default. In our use case, as soon as an agent opens a ticket, the customer's email ID needs to be fetched and the corresponding details are imported from Zoho CRM accordingly. In this case, we can use the background widget feature to fetch the data from Zoho CRM. This can be implemented using the background widget.
  2. Tickets subtab widget: In our example use case, we need the customer’s details to be shown to the agent. Let’s choose the ticket's subtab location to display the same.
  3. Inter-widget communication: Because there are two widgets being used, we can use the inter-widget communication feature for a seamless data flow between the two widgets.

Subtab widget

An agent opens a ticket. Now the background widget gets loaded by default. When the agent moves to the subtab widget to view the customer details, the subtab widget is loaded and we communicate to the background widget about the same. The customer data transferred to the subtab widget will be displayed to the agent.


Background widget

As soon as the background widget gets a communication from the subtab widget, the customer's details are fetched and transmitted back to the subtab widget.





We have attached the entire code of our sample in this post. You can download the same and reuse, if required.

Sample output



Hope you found this post to be useful. Stay tuned for more posts in this space!

See Also



      • Recent Topics

      • Email Opt Out Question

        Has the problem where if a customer is emailed opt out prevents you sending standard emails? For me this feature is simply to stop any email marketing and should not block people from receiving emails via Zoho mobile, which makes no sense.

      • Can No Longer Access Zoho Email Accounts from iPhone or iPad Apple Mail Apps ,.

        Keeps asking for password, Says ID or password incorrect. Tried creating a new app specific password. Same result. Is this possibly related to the server maintenance. Have verified all email settings, userid and password. This has worked for years until

      • Latest update caused issue in using marathi typingzoho

        With latest update now marathi typing does Not work in zohonotebook. I preferred zoho over other because it was supporting marathi font without any distortion.. But after new update,keyborad simply does not work

      • Login verification emails never received.

        I can't login to my account. You send a verification email, but it never arrives. This is a common problem, frequently caused by some relay point out there classifying the sender as a spammer. Is there anything I can do to bypass this? Maybe get a text

      • Global lists for Multi select

        It would be great if I could select a global list to use for a multi select dropdown filed.

      • Yahoo is rejecting e-mails sent from a Zoho server

        Diagnostic-Code: 4.7.0 [TSS04] Messages from 136.143.169.51 temporarily deferred due to unexpected volume or user complaints - 4.16.55.1; see https://postmaster.yahooinc.com/error-codes Remote-MTA: dns; mta5.am0.yahoodns.net

      • Yahoo blocks e-mail sent from Zoho servers

        Getting this for a bunch of Yahoo addresses. Do you know if some of your servers got blacklisted? Diagnostic-Code: 4.7.0 [TSS04] Messages from 136.143.169.51 temporarily deferred due to unexpected volume or user complaints - 4.16.55.1; see https://postmaster.yahooinc.com/error-codes

      • Working with dates and Function Field

        Hello friends! I'm trying to add days to a date, however the field function will always shows 00:00:00 after the resultant date. How can I display only the date, whithout the time? toDate(input.request_date.addDay(input.Prazo_acordado),"MM,d,yyyy") The code above will result something like "11-Feb-2020 00:00:00", but I want to display only "11-Feb-2020"

      • What's New in Zoho Analytics - November 2025

        We're thrilled to announce a significant update focused on expanding your data connectivity, enhancing visualization capabilities, and delivering a more powerful, intuitive, and performant analytics experience. Here’s a look at what’s new. Explore What's

      • Unable to send message;Reason:550 5.4.6 Unusual sending activity detected. Please try after sometime.

        Please help my account got blocked automatically, can you help me how to avoid it? Thanks so much

      • Unusual activity detected from this IP. Please try again after some time

        When i try to create new addresses on my account i am getting this error, it has been 24 hours now and i am still getting this error can anyone help

      • temporary system errorlouis

        J'essaye d'envoyer des mails avec mes 2 adresses mail qe nous avons sur le compte arthur@lepunch.fr et louis@lepunch.fr mais j'ai toujours le message temporaire system error, je reçois les mails mais impossible d'en envoyer a qui que ce soit

      • How to Cancel/Delete Queued Mail Merge?

        Hi. I just tried to do a mail merge before realizing there's a limit on number of sends. I accidentally sent one of my lists twice, and all of those emails are currently queued. Is there any way to cancel or delete a queued mail merge? Would love to be

      • SOLVED: Stopping Multiple Invitations when sync with Google Calendar

        I wanted to share this solution as I wasn't able to find it when searching through the Zoho community and via web search. The issue: When requestor books a meeting through Zoho Bookings, the requestor receives a confirmation email from both Bookings and

      • Need to add a new admin for my domain

        Hello Zoho Support, I am the owner of the domain localeistanbul.com. The current super admin account (admin@localeistanbul.com) is not accessible. I do not want to reset or delete the existing account because I need to keep all existing emails. Please

      • Possible Fraud Site.

        Hello. I received a text with the sender's name as zoho, claiming that my account was at risk and that I should sign in at https://verify.zohomails.ru/signin to verify my account. I signed in on the web address above, and a few days later someone hacked

      • Zoho mail to Teaminbox

        Hello, We're searching for new mail program. Now I'm testing a bit with zoho mail and team inbox. My findings in the research: Pop mail throught zoho mail is almost instant. Any pop or imap via external provider takes a couple minutes to 15 minutes before

      • Crear tarea CRM con recordatorio desde Zoho Flow

        Hola, estoy intentando crear desde Zoho Flow una tarea en CRM. Lo he logrado hacer pero sin recordatorio, ya que no se como se debe escribir el string adecuado. He probado varias alternativas, pero ninguna me funcionó hasta ahora. - FREQ=NONE;ACTION=EMAIL;TRIGGER=DATE-TIME:${FechaVto}

      • Inquiry Regarding Automated Assignment of Zoho TeamInbox Messages using Zoho Flow and Deluge

        Hello, Our company is currently using Zoho TeamInbox, and we are interested in automating the assignment of responsible parties using tools such as ZOHO Flow and Deluge. Is it possible to achieve this? Allow me to provide more details. Currently, when

      • Multiple clients in one project

        Hi team, What is the possibility to have more than one client to be linked for one project in the Zoho Books? Our business model is to have a project, and this project have expenses/bills, as well, we issue invoices for this same project to several customers.

      • Upgrade Zoho Desk Agent-Side Answer Bot to GenAI

        Hello Zoho Desk Team, We hope you're doing well. Following the recent announcements and rollout of the GenAI-based Answer Bot in Zoho SalesIQ (Nova '25), we’d like to formally request a similar upgrade for the Answer Bot used by agents inside Zoho Desk.

      • Marketers' Space: The importance of warming up your sender domain

        Hello Marketers, Welcome back to yet another post! Today, we'll talk about why warming up your sender domain matters. Imagine you've recently started a business and want to share the news with your customers. You've designed a great email campaign using

      • An Exclusive Session for Zoho Desk Users: AI in Zoho Desk

        A Zoho Community Learning Initiative Hello everyone! This is an announcement for Zoho Desk users and anyone exploring Zoho Desk. With every nook and corner buzzing, "AI's here, AI's there," it's the right time for us to take a closer look at how the AI

      • Search Just Got Smarter in Notebook

        Hello there! Introducing Our New & Improved Search Experience! We heard your feedback! Many of you shared that our previous search had some challenges like • Inconsistent results across different clients • Limited accuracy in finding the right content

      • Zoho Desk app update - AI Integration for IM Chats

        Hello everyone! We have now introduced AI integration for IM Chats within the Zoho Desk mobile app. To access the feature, please enable the 'Generative AI' settings on the desktop site(desk.zoho.com). Please refer to the help link attached below: Zoho

      • Open A.I assistant Connect with Zoho Desk instant Message Conversations

        I would like to know how do I connect my instant messenger in Zoho desk with my Open A.I Gpt Assistant. this is very easy to setup using the Salesiq Zobot but when it comes to Zoho Desk i cannot figure how to make the connection. Ideal workflow Customers

      • Cannot upgrade subscription plan due to payment error message

        Hi Zoho team, This is to request support on an issue I am facing during an upgrade I am trying to make to our company's yearly Zoho subscription. I am trying to add 3 more license to my plan and during the payment phase I get the below error as in the

      • Enhancing Zia's service with better contextual responses and article generation

        Hello everyone, We are enhancing Zia's Generative AI service to make your support experience smarter. Here's how: Increased accuracy with Qwen One of the key challenges in AI is delivering responses that are both contextually accurate and empathetic while

      • Zoho Desk app update: AI powered features

        Hello everyone! We’ve introduced various AI-powered services on the Zoho Desk app. Let's take a look at what's new. Generate Content: Generate Content uses AI to formulate responses based on the your query and provides a ready-to-use reply which can be

      • Bulk update Archived Ticket

        Dear All We would like to update the "Category" values to the new filed. We found the archived Ticket seems to be don't support the bulk action. Do we have any way to update it. Finally, we would to generate a report for our ticket system. Regards I

      • Channel Configuration and Default Channels

        There are some of the default fields that cannot be removed or changed. Examples are the social media ones, such as Facebook. It would be nice to be able to remove these fields as it would be confusing if someone selected this but it's not configure

      • Delay function execute

        I've got a workflow which uses a webhook to send information to Flow, which in return updates a record in Creator. Problem is, by the time this has executed, the rest of my script has run and can't find the (yet to be) updated info in the record. Is there

      • Support www.camcard.com

        Hi, Is it possible CRM Zoho have integrations with https://camcard.com/? Thanks Br, Andy

      • Option to Customize Career Site URL Without “/jobs/Careers”

        Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Career Site URL structure in Zoho Recruit. In the old version of the career site, our URL was simply: 👉 https://jobs.domain.com However, after moving to

      • Can't make a document editable to anyone

        Hey everyone, I am using Zoho Workdrive and trying to share a document so that it is editable by anyone with the link. I am trying to convince people to shift from Google to Zoho, but they don't have accounts yet. When I try to change the share settings

      • Edit Default Print

        What I want to do is create / edit the "Default Print" template without changing the layout I'm using. Currently I can create "Email Templates" but I don't use them for emailing and getting to that selection takes multiple clicks. If an email template could be set to be the Default Print template that would be helpful. I'd also like to print these in bulk but don't see that option (there is a mail merge macro but that goes straight to emailing, not to print or PDF).

      • Widget shows error

        Hi， May I ask why below characters will be auto added into the widget link and how to solve this error? As my widget shows 404 error now. ?serviceOrigin=https%3A%2F%2Fcrm.zoho.com&frameorigin=https%3A%2F%2Fcrm.zoho.com

      • How to print envelope labels from Zoho CRM

        Can anybody give me any clue how to print envelope/package labels directly from Contacts view? Regards, Alexandru Moderation Update: The Canvas Print View, which also facilitates the formatting of mailing labels, is now available! Learn more here: Zoho

      • Data Import: New interface, improved field mapping, and more

        Hello everyone! We’ve redesigned the data import process to ensure accurate field alignment and verify that every column in the uploaded file maps correctly with Desk fields before import. Here's how: Streamlined Import Steps Importing data is now more

      • Address labels

        Hi, we've been searching for a long time for a simple way for our employees to print address labels using a Dymo Label Writer 450. We came up with two alternatives that work, bur aren't really optimal.  First one is WebMerge. Webmerge is a great application that does 100% what we need but it is way too expensive for our needs. We only need to print a couple of labels per month. The second one is the integrated print tool in Zoho CRM, (Print preview) You would think this is the obvious way to do this

      • Next Page